More about Nwt/Nōd and Adiabene

Abstract

The classical sources refer to Adiabene as Ἄδιαβηνή, which was rendered into Aramaic as Bēt Ḥadhyb/Ḥdyb, primarily by Syriac-Aramaic sources, such as the Synodicon of the Nestorian Church (from 410 CE onward), alongside a few Talmudic expressions. The etymology of both names is unclear. To expand the discussion, one can now rely on three further references for nwt. Two of them appear in unpublished Mandaean lead rolls, while the other is found in a magic bowl, known since 1993, written in Babylonian Aramaic square script. The three new references confirm that nwt or Nōd must be the official designation for Adiabene, at least in the Parthian period, with certainty at the beginning of the Sasanian period under Šābuhr I, and perhaps also later. The Semiticbased explanations provided by Lipiński, along with his attempt to read a participle Ntwn instead of nwt and his subsequent shift to ntw, are likely incorrect.